


That Day (Version 1)

by robinasnyder



Series: Sharing Toothpaste [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-19
Updated: 2012-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-08 02:46:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/438288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robinasnyder/pseuds/robinasnyder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim shot himself, this is how they grieve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Day (Version 1)

Sebastian hesitated for a moment, looking at the perfectly nice wooden door and the perfectly normal frame of a perfectly normal flat that he was about to interrupt. Did she even know? She worked at the hospital. Had she been on duty? Did she know?

His hand felt wrong as he brought it down to knock once. It sounded loud in his ears, a heavy thud. He brought his hand down again, too slow to be a natural wrapping, especially compared to his normally wrapping. It sounded too heavy again, but he wasn't even sure how much sound he was making. Again, for a third sluggish time he brought his hand down. This one was very loud.

The door opened, and there she was.

"Come in," she said. She didn't even ask why he appeared at her door step when he never had before, or how he knew her address when she'd never told either of them.

He came inside, letting her shut the door behind him. "Do you know?" he asked. The words felt wrong in his mouth, like another man's words. They felt like a quote from a movie, something that didn't come from his brain but that someone had purposefully placed there.

"I performed the autopsy," she said. Her tone was clipped and clinical.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

Molly reached up, taking his hand and leading him over to the sofa. She carefully pushed him down and sat next to him. He noticed how her knee pressed against his own, more out of not thinking than comfort. He noticed how her hands gripped his own, completely out of worry.

"Are you okay?" she asked him.

"You performed the autopsy," he said.

"Sebastian," she said. He winced. The first time she'd ever said his name and it was a chastisement. She never would have said it if… he just really hated it.

"I'm fine."

"He was right you know."

"About what?" His tone was clipped, angry, defensive, military.

"You're a god awful liar," she said with the saddest smile. Her eyes were red. She'd already cried.

"Shut up," Sebastian grumbled, hanging his head a bit, gripping onto her hands tightly. He knew they were both right.

"Did you see him do it?"

"Yes."

"What was it like?" Part curiosity, part necessity.

"A final fuck you to the world." All anger, all bitterness, all contained.

"Sounds like Jim."

"Don't!" he gasped. "Don't say it, I can't." He stopped talking. It hurt, like a fucking knife through his ribs. He could completely believe that Moriarty would kill himself. If it got him what he wanted, Jim would have done anything. He'd even seen Moriarty do it… but it was one thing to know and another to accept it.

Molly's arms wrapped around his neck, rocking him, shushing him. He hadn't realized that he'd started to cry. Molly had cried already, probably as soon as she finished the autopsy of the man she'd been so obsessively in love with. She was done with it now though. Sebastian hadn't even begun.

Whatever he felt for Jim was wrapped and wrong and not understandable and fledgling. He didn't know what he felt about Jim; except that he knew he loved the man, how exactly he hadn't worked out. Jim was no friend, and he wasn't Sebastian's brother. Sebastian wasn't attracted to men, but he was drawn to Jim like a buzzard to carrion. He's lived off Jim for so long.

Molly had a life outside of Jim, it involved dead bodies and a cat and friends, and Sherlock _bloody_ Holmes (who Sebastian refused to address with Molly ever), and friends, and Sebastian on odd days. Sebastian had only had Jim… Jim, and Molly when he was allowed.

He felt a terrible bitterness and a wish to plead to God to undo his wish. He'd been thinking how nice it would be to have Molly to himself, and yet he didn't want this. He didn't want this to be how he got to have Molly. He felt like an idiot for even thinking about God after all the shit he'd done in his life.

Molly probably believed, he didn't know. She might try to comfort him, but he hoped she'd never said 'he's in a better place', when they both knew that only hell could hold Jim Moriarty. There was no comfort. They knew who they were. They knew who'd they lost.

Sebastian just cried for a long while, unable to stop his tears. Molly soothed, gentle in the way her fingers pressed up into his hair, drawing his mind away from his pain and back to his bedroom where they would lay wrapped up in each other every evening she came over. He felt guilty, guilty for being able to be with Molly, guilty for stealing time from Jim, time from Molly, guilty for being alive when the man he was supposed to protect (even from himself) was not.

When he silenced himself into quiet tremors Molly tipped his head up, kissing his forehead. "Now we grieve, and try to carry on," she told him quietly.

"Where will they bury him?"

"Seb, if someone claims the body, they'll be on them so fast and hard… if you claim his body then you'll get caught too, all his work will fall apart."

"It will fall apart without him anyway," Sebastian pointed out.

"Then what do you plan to do?"

"I don't know," he said. He hadn't thought that far ahead.

"What'd you do the last time?"

"Bar hopping," he said, knowing she meant his discharge. "Tiger hunting," he added with a shrug.

"You could stay here."

"I can't work from here."

"Just for the moment," she told him. "Please," she added, grabbing his face between her hands. "I can't lose you both in one go," she said. Women were like that, being strong for their men even when they were cracking up inside. She was giving him a direction. It felt wrong, it felt broken, it made his heart clench to think of staying with her. At the same time, she needed him.

"I'll take the couch then?" he asked.

She smiled and he saw understanding in her eyes. She leaned in, pressing her lips to his forehead. "Thank you," she said, and he realized that she wasn't ready for more than that either. They were both grieving, Moriarty's number two guy, and Moriarty's only woman. For the moment they'd just need to take it as slow as they were able.


End file.
